i can’t remember when the song layla sank into my consciousness.

i was a proper little church-going girl, i was in the deep, deep south and hee-haw was on tv every week. i was surrounded by cousins and sweet dirt and sky, and the sun was always shining, even when it rained. i remember a little battery operated transistor radio in my bedroom that had a strap on one side of it. i can remember lying on my stomach, playing with my paper dolls with that radio right next to my head, listening to the allman brothers.

no one told me that what i was listening to was for white people, that i was supposed to be at the r&b end of the table because i was black and that’s what black people listened to. i instinctively knew that table was mine and i could sit whereever i wanted. later, much later, in college and even in my early time in nyc - when i was supposed to be surrounded by smart cool talented individuals - i can distinctly remember them (black and white) balking when i said which butthole surfers record i preferred or how much i liked bands like husker du and captain beefheart and the pixies or how i loved mudhoney way more than nirvana for that supermuff but cobain wrote catchier songs or how i was going to go see john doe somewhere downtown the next night. the question hung in the air like pastel colored streamers at a mexican prom: how did i know so much about rock? rarely ever would anyone actually ask. (too bad.)

“you’re an anomaly,” some white someone told me once.

“oh really,” i said flatly. i couldn’t believe that he meant that as a compliment. but he did. “maybe i’m the norm,” i casually suggested. “either way,” i continued, “how would you know?” (and no, that’s not all i said. not by a long shot.) i’m probably always going to remember the way his face changed as that one sank in.

that whole blipster thing is just one more stupid chapter in a continuing bizarre racist saga of “how to sell music to america” that some yahoo set up when they figured out how to make money off of records back in the day. now that they’ve come up with a name for The Only Black Person At The Show, they can patronize with some degree of accuracy and still be completely busted.

but i digress.

i think duke ellington was dead-on correct when he said there’s only two kinds of music—good and bad. unknowingly, the song layla set it off for me. or was it freeform fm radio? i don’t know.

i never thought much of eric clapton as a vocalist or as a guitarist (yes, he’s great—no, he’s not a deity) but i did love derek and the dominos. the more i listened to the music, the more i wanted to know more about where all of that passion and feeling and desperation came from. i heard snippets of stories here and there. and what happened to the drummer sounded like a wierd urban legend. but then i found this layla book and had it all explained to me, in such lurid detail that i could almost feel their collective exhaustion after some drug addled binge in the english countryside.

all of that 70’s excess - the heroin, the alcohol, the ferraris that were paid for in cash, the hookers that duane allman had imported from macon for their sessions in miami - that’s in there. but the love story at the core of it all is compelling stuff. and ultimately, the way clapton takes his feeling and pain and makes art is effing brilliant.

but it’s the never-ending twang of that slide guitar that embraces something inside of me—that something that knew sacred steel in a traditional church setting before elmore james made his presence felt and then duane allman turned it into something else. my southern ways are still there. they’re completely intact and ever-present. thank Jesus.

oh. and duane and greg look like some hayseeds i went to school with, for real—which made me love them even more and miss the south of my childhood.

i don’t want to meet eric clapton. i want to meet bobby whitlock.

when i was in college, everybody always said he’s sooooo brilliant and everybody was always kind of foaming at the mouth obsessive about how genius he’s supposed to be. but that nasaly high whinny of a voice of his always got my way. how was i supposed to listen to anything bob dylan had to say when his voice went through my head like a nail?

then one day, i downloaded “tangled up in blue” when napster was, well, napster. i couldn’t let it go. and i couldn’t believe me, clinging to that song and that voice, but God help me, i was riveted. the nasaly thing was still there but there was so much more. it was almost as though the nasaly thing was choking back the feelings that were imploding inside of him. there were moments when he was flat-out howling into the mic. almost immediately, the words made pictures that came alive like little moviolas in my imagination. and they still flicker to life whenever i think about that song, much less hear it. so yeah, he got me with that one.

it made me wonder what frequency i was living inside of all those years, to miss something so compelling and beautiful and alive. did i grow out of something and into something else? or maybe i grew up. or my ears matured. my tastes, my sensibilities. i don’t know. i have always loved billie holiday but i know a lot of people, singers even, who can’t stand the sound of her voice. when ethel waters heard her singing one of her signature songs and someone asked her what she thought, she said, “she sings like her shoes are too tight.”

but i digress.

like i said, i wasn’t in love with dylan at that point. but i could understand why everyone else was and i certainly had much more respect for him as a songwriter. my respect grew when i read and saw snippets about his life later on and started collecting certain albums and box sets.

the reason why this scorsese documentary is so cool and necessary and important is because it catches dylan from his somewhat humble beginnings to a very crucial time for him as an artist. he could have remained a folky activist but he grew into some other direction. that happens for a lot of musicians but very few have the temerity of mind, the balls if you will, to actually follow through, abandon their success and pursue their vision, however warped or lopsided or unpopular it seems to be. this documentary isn’t meant to be some far-reaching retrospective of his life. it is a snapshot of that choice - one that he had to make to stay alive creatively. because at that point, he’d written some iconic songs already that had been covered by some pretty amazing musicians. (jimi hendrix doing “like a rolling stone,” for example - or how about everyone doing “hey mr. tamborine man”?) oh, heck. he was an icon, at that point. a folky icon, but an icon nonetheless. he really didn’t have to do anything else—but the creative impetus compelled him and so he moved on and everyone threw rocks at him for it.

this film captures the rock throwing. and as i watched everyone - from the whiny british concert-goers to the critics to his fellow musicians, even - hound him and call him everything but a child of God for not doing the old folky activist material the way they wanted him to, i felt a strange sense of pride and satisfaction and, well, some kind of love for this stranger, so determined to do his thing, his way. he inspired me—because, after all, as an artist (even though i’m no bob dylan) that’s exactly what i’m trying to do, too.

if you’re an artist or even remotely creative - or if you’ve ever wanted to pursue your own vision, do your own thing, whether it’s opening your own business or having a baby or whatever - you really should watch this documentary. it’s well worth repeated viewing.

this book affected me in much the same way as the “rich dad, poor dad” series did: it changed the way i thought about money and time, and its making me a much more responsible person fiscally. i realize now that what i do with the money i earn is a matter of discipline (like saving a certain percentage every week), that it’s all about the habits i develop (like making a budget and sticking to it) and how i prioritize things.

the biggest shocker of the book is that being a millionaire is within anyone’s grasp, really—if they’re willing to be disciplined about saving and investing, and if they’re willing to sacrifice.

this book is an easy read that tells the story of the life/career of little richard, with powerpacked interviews from just about everyone who knew him back in the day, and then some: musicians that were on the road with him, long time stripper-girlfriends, valets and such, and of course the seminal figures in early rock and roll, from the stage and behind the scenes. there are long winding discourses from little richard himself that feel more like an intimate aside than an interview. even his mother tells it to you from her side of the story. just about everybody puts their two cents in. and it’s worth every penny.

what’s incredible is the way he clung to God—through the orgies, the drugs, the near-death experiences, all of it. bandmates said that sometimes after staying up all night having sex, everyone would wake up to find him reading the Bible and quoting scripture.

i’m not sure what i learned about myself (because everything that moves you lets you walk away with something new about yourself, whether you realize it or not) or him (some things i knew, some things i didn’t) but one thing is very clear—i’m not going to forget a lot of what i read in this book for a very long time.

once i started reading this brilliant little book, i couldn’t put it down. it was just that good. a deceptively simple read, well-organized and layered with historical references throughout, in the style of the other books robert greene has written (and i’ve read them, too). i love history. it really drew me in.

i think it took me awhile to finish it because there were certain parts that i kept re-reading, almost in disbelief: for some strange reason, all of it seemed to echo something in me that i already knew to be true but somehow hadn’t expressed. and here it was, in 33 shades of action-packed decisiveness and strategy—how to win your battle, whatever it may be. it doesn’t matter what you’re talking about or who you’re talking to. look beneath the surface of the simplest conversation, and it’s like there’s shrapnel flying everywhere and you’re storming the beach at normandy.

none of it means much of anything if you don’t incorporate it into your life.

every example had a different style. that stuck with me. with a little objectivity and a lot of insight, i began to look at my world differently all over again. i’m already goal-oriented and aggressive but after this book, i began to rethink my approach and how i could hone it—whether it’s getting a pair of boots i found on ebay or obtaining a bank loan from my credit union or calling a so-called nemesis on her bullshit.

my point is, i was thinking this way anyway. we all are. the difference is that now that i’ve read the book and analysed the process, i can strengthen it and ultimately better my situation.

i can’t believe how much i truly enjoyed this book.

needless to say, i avoided it all my life because as a southerner, i thought it was a racist piece of claptrap about the civil war and the slaves and the slavemasters. and it is about the war between the states—but not really. the war is a backdrop to the torrential love life of scarlett o’hara and rhett butler.

and really, what makes it all so fascinating is that their relationship and how it devolves is a microcosm of love and how it’s supposed to work, and how people can sometimes get in their own way and unhinge it. the war parallels a lot of what happens between them. it’s surprisingly well-written. and it’s not racist, per se. it’s in keeping with the way people functioned back then and actually gives the reader a hard look at black people’s lives during reconstruction.

i think that this is a book that every american should read.

i can’t even begin to describe how brilliant this movie is.

based on stories written by Dany Laferriere (he wrote the searing, nearly flawless “how to make love to a negro without getting tired”), this movie is about three middle aged white women who come to haiti in the ‘70s on a yearly pilgrimmage to have sex with beautiful black boys, and the teenaged one in particular that two of them vie for.

it’s about sex, lust, objectification/fetishization. it’s about colonialization, political struggle and power. it’s about race and class. it addresses so many things so seamlessly, in part because it’s spectacularly well written and the characters are so well developed, i found myself feeling more for them than i thought i wanted to.

read stephen holden’s new york times review here. don’t miss it while it’s still playing somewhere near you.

i loved this book. it tells “the story behind the song” - in this case, several songs - by a critically acclaimed musician/songwriter and shows the process of songwriting: where an idea comes from, what inspires and how a snippet of a melody can grow into something that is so moving and compelling. who takes this stuff apart and shows the anatomy of what it takes to write songs? i thought it was especially interesting to hear this from a woman (that hardly ever happens) and a woman that plays guitar well (that hardy ever happens, either).

i can’t wait to meet marshall chapman.

God, i loved this movie. i haven’t seen it in years and i still think about certain scenes, certain images. this is the flick that made me wake up one day and throw out every pair of pants i owned. i never knew where it was going. i fell into his psyche and learned more about myself than i could ever have guessed.

in seeing the power that women had over him simply by being their female selves, i realized the power that i have automatically, effortlessly, just by being female—oh, and dressing like one.

every woman everywhere should see this movie.

the characters weren’t developed very well and the sex scenes/intimacy between couples felt contrived (especially with jamie fox) but there were visuals that stayed with me much longer than i thought they would and that’s more than i can say for most of the summer pap that’s out there right now. it certainly had more of a plot than superman.

as far as fusing music and visuals, well—nobody does that better than that non-oscar winning scorsese. (if you need a visual reminder of how this is supposed to work, check out goodfellas when the rotting dead bodies are turning up and the piano solo from “layla” is playing. effing brilliant.) it didn’t help that this guy used tired boring lame-o material from contemporary zillion sellers like linkin park. the music didn’t drive the action forward or augment it in part because it sucked.